PLEASE WHITELIST US.
If it weren’t for the ads, LaptopMedia wouldn’t be running.
Our articles are free to read but the equipment in our Labs isn’t.
We want to be as objective and unbiased as possible, and you can help us keep our jobs by whitelisting our media in your adblocker.

The time has come to confront other three popular chips developed by Samsung. This time the “stars” of this comparison are the mobile processors Exynos 7880, Exynos 7870 and Exynos 7420. They can be found in some of the most wanted models of the South Korean company – Samsung Galaxy А5 (2017), Samsung Galaxy А3 (2017) and Samsung Galaxy S6 respectively. In the sections below we will share information about each of the chips, compare their benchmark results, and finally conclude with surface overheating tests.

We start off with Exynos 7880, which is a 64-bit mobile processor developed by Samsung. It can be found in the smartphone Samsung Galaxy А5 (2017). The chip is manufactured through a 14nm technological process and features eight Cortex-A53 cores running at a frequency of 1.9 GHz. Its specs sheet is complemented by LTE Cat 7 connectivity with a download speed of up to 300Mbps, support for screens with resolution of up to 2560 х 1440 pixels, up to 21.7MP cameras and 4K video recording and playback at 30fps. The available GPU here is Mali-T830 MP3.

The next chip of this comparison is Exynos 7870 – available in the smartphone Samsung Galaxy А3 (2017). This is a 64-bit mobile processor that features 8 Cortex-A53 cores running at a frequency of 1.6 GHz. It is manufactured through a 14nm technological process. Among the specifications of the chip stand out LTE Cat 6 connectivity with a download speed of up to 300Mbps, support for Full HD screens, up to 16MP cameras and Full HD video recording at 60fps.

And last but certainly not least – Exynos 7420. The 64-bit processor can be found in Samsung Galaxy S6. This is the first mobile chip which uses a 14-nm-FinFET-SoC LPE process, available in a smartphone. It features eight cores – four Cortex-A53 cores working at 1.5 GHz and four 2.1GHz Cortex-A57 cores. The specs sheet is complemented by LTE Cat 16 support which will ensure download speeds of up to 450Mbps and upload speeds of up to 50Mbps. Here, the Mali-T760MP8 GPU takes care of the graphics performance.

Benchmark results

We put to the test the computing as well as graphics power of the three mobile processors using several benchmark test, the results of which you can see in the table below.

Benchmarks

Exynos 7880

Exynos 7870

Exynos 7420

Geekbench 3 (Multi-Core)

4113

3598

4604

Vellamo 3 Metal

1370

1153

2678

GFXBench 2.7 T-Rex (offscreen)

34

12

59

GFXBench 3 Manhattan (offscreen)

15

5.1

26

GFXBench 3.1 Manhattan (offscreen)

9.1

3.2

–

3D Mark Ice Unlimited

13540

8564

21662

External temperatures

Apart from performance, we also tested the three chips for potential overheating issues after several hours of extended 3D gaming with the help of the Epic Citadel app. Immediately after this, we measured the temperatures in three sections of the smartphone’s back taking into account only the highest values. In all three cases, the temperature didn’t reach particularly worrying values but in Samsung Galaxy S6 the results were slightly higher compared to the other two mobile devices. The photos below display the registered temperatures in the three sections of each smartphone’s back.

You can find out where the three smartphones are positioned in our graphics and computing power rankings.